Changeable stencil



-UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

J. BIGELOV, OF BRIGHTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

CHAN GEABLE STENCIL.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 25,481, dated-September 20, 1859.

T o all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, J. BIGELow, of Brighton, in the county of Middlesex and State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and Improved Changeable Extension-Stencil; and I do hereby declare that the following, taken in connection with the drawings which accompany and fo-rm a part of this specification, is a description thereof so full and exact as to enable those skilled in the art to practice my invention.

In the drawings Figure l is a plan and Fig. 2 a cross section (taken on line seen in Fig. l) illustrating my invention.

Similar letters refer to similar parts in both figures.

It has long been a desideratum to produce a stencil which could be extended in lines parallel with each other to any desirable extent, while the separate plates forming the stencil should be capable of change to produce the necessary combinations of lette-rs, figures and punctuation, the whole being formed in' such a manner that the stencil should be as manageable as those in which the characters are unchangeably formed in one plate.

I am aware that a. holder has been made to'freceive in succession plates in which char; acters are cut for the purpose of form1ng. `aV

stencil. Such a one was patented to Edwin Allen Sept. 4th, 1840. The simple arrangef ment and combination of a grooved frame with the perforated plates forming letters, &c., I disclaim, my invention being an improvenient upon such a device whereby I am enabled to extend and contract the stencil to any number of lines, within practical limits, and to thus complete the whole of a" direction or any other mark without change of the stencil. The separate plates in which the characters are formed to produce the stencil patented to the said Allen are bent at their ends to an angle much less than a right angle, which corresponds to the groove cut in the receiving frame, and they are not again bent to reverse angles with those first formed, as is necessary in my arrangement. In the construction of my stencil each end of each separate plate is first bent to a rightangle, and these ends are again bent so as to be parallel with that part of the plate in which the character is cut. This arrangement is plainly shown in Fig. 2; but itwill be obvious that if the lower parts of the ings.

supporting and holding frames were not rectangular the angles of the ends of the plates should be formed to correspond with the angles of the said lower parts of the frame.

The central or main holding frame is provided with a handle (d), for convenience, which is an( extension of the top bar (o) through which the screws (c) act upon the follower (CZ) to press it firmly upon the different plates which are inserted between (d) and (g) and extend outward from either side of the main frame. The lower side of the follower is faced with some slightly yielding substance, such as leather l or rubber, to insure a grip upon each chai acter plate.

The auxiliary or side frames may be c0nstructed as just described for the main frame, or as shown in the drawings, where the top bar (e) is hinged to the lower bar (f), (e) being faced as is (ci), and both (c) and (f) being slightly convex on those faces between which the plates are pinched. The bars (e) and (f) are held together, clamp ing the plat-es between them, by means of the catch or latch rf-It is evident that the lines of the stencil may be extended on either side of the main frame beyond what is shown in the draw- One of the sides of each character plate, at right angles with the bent ends before mentioned, is swaged upward just suilicient to admit beneath the swaged part the thickness of the adjoining plate. This arrangement prevents in marking the formation of lines of ink at each joint of the stencil plate, and to a certain degree unites thewhole of the stencil.

Plates with characters of any length or width may be used in combination with my holding frames, provided that the length of the plates in each line of the stencil between the bent ends is uniform and that the height of all the plates from their faces to the part where they are clamped is the same.

y It is not expected that for many uses my stencil will be employed, as the solid plate is preferable to it on account of its lightness and compactness whenever the amount of one kind of marking is large enough to pay for the expense of such stencils. -But for a direction plate in ware-houses from which at intervals packages are sent to dierent persons all over the country its value will the saine be swaged at one edge or not, also the stencil formed by the combination of 1o said character plate and a frame or frames or clamps as described.

J BIGELOW.

Witnesses:

J. B. CROSBY, GORDON MCKAY, 

